PHANTOM LADY

Overview

The first of the noir films directed by Robert Siodmak and the first feature film produced by Alfred Hitchcock’s multitalented collaborator, Joan Harrison, it’s a tightly-wound crime mystery, adapted  from a book with a complicated plot and a lot of characters, many of whom are killed off as the serial murderer continues to eliminate witnesses. The film adaptation has distilled the story down to just 87 minutes of movie time.

This 1944 drama has been enjoying something of a revival eighty years after it was produced, and can be considered an essential early film noir. The story is as dark as the city streets in Woody Bredell’s cinematography. It’s too early to have a disillusioned WWII veteran struggling with money and morality, as so many classic noirs have, but there is a single female protagonist fighting against the clock to find witnesses to save her innocent boss from execution. Cornell Woolrich’s original book chapters, to enhance the reader’s anxiety, are each titled as a countdown of days before the scheduled execution. As a matter of screen adaptation, Carol’s (Ella Raines) role is greatly expanded, where the book gives us Inspector Burgess (Thomas Gomez in the film) handling much more of the investigation.